Seems the CEI is sticking to their guns about the idealogical necessity of dissolving the National Weather Service if we are to trust Anthony’s copy-and-paste. Here’s the short version of the sputtering defense of their Pavlovian recent attack: All government services are bad because any collective effort makes individuals dependent! Except, not. Collective effort, whether it is weather services or armies, magnifies the contributions of individuals. Also, selling the NWS would give the government a one-time cash bump!

Such doctrinaire thinking, such short-sighted avarice.

I know, I know. Every libertarian is Chuck Norris and Charlton Heston rolled in to one. They fashion roads with their bare hands as they walk through virgin forest and can remove their own appendix without anesthetic. And, by God, no one will tell them what the weather’s going to be!

Hmmm. I wonder why the Competitive Enterprise Institute isn’t all over privatizing the US Military? No there’s an area with real impact on government costs. Maybe it doesn’t suit their prejudices though.

2 thoughts on “Government Funding of the National Weather Service: A Response to Our Critics”

What Libertarians ignore is that when weather information is privatized, the owners of the information are interested in making money, not providing the service. Hurricane headed your way? Think how many more people would have died from Irene if the response was “no information for you; you didn’t pay us.”

Of course if the data is private and someone produces a graph showing temperatures are increasing you can’t really trust that can you. Libertarians will just have to reluctantly and sadly accept the necessary destruction of research based on weather data and put the entire concept of “Is the climate changing?” into the “No idea the data is all owned by XYZ Corp” bucket.